Beneath the waves, lost to the desert sands, or simply reclaimed by nature, these are some of the world’s most beautiful locations that civilisation abandoned

From disused fairgrounds to neglected cliff-top hotels, these atmospheric pictures of urban decay and abandoned buildings show just how rapid decline can be without human attention.

Disasters such as earthquakes, nuclear explosions and prolonged warfare have left some places uninhabitable while others, like Japanese fairground Nara Dreamland, sadly just fell out of fashion.

At the ends of the earth are beautiful sights such as the underwater Christ of the Abyss statue off the Italian coast and the ghost town of Kolmanskop in the Namibian desert, rarely ever seen by people any more.

A lone man takes pictures inside the crumbling House of the Bulgarian Communist Party on Mount Buzludzha, no longer needed after the party has lost its grip on the country

The House of the Bulgarian Communist Party was left after the regime collapsed two decades ago but the Bulgarian authorities have neither maintained nor dismantled them, leaving behind an eerie shell of a building

Still looking imposing in the snow despite its decay, the House of the Bulgarian Communist Party is now rarely visited

In the Thames estuary the abandoned wartime Redsands forts are rusting away, with Kentish flats windfarm on the horizon

Seagulls are now the only inhabitants at the Army's old Anti-Aircraft towers at Redsands, Kent

It may look like a science fiction film set but this is a Russian military rocket factory outside Moscow, which is now left unguarded

The photos of the NPO Energomash factory, which produced liquid-fuel rockets, were taken by a woman called Lana Sator, who managed to sneak into the facility

Looking now more like a haunted house than a hotel, the Hotel del Salto in Columbia has trees growing through its once-grand rooms. It opened in 1928 to welcome wealthy travelers visiting Tequendama Falls but it closed down in the early nineties

The medieval village of Craco Basilicata became a ghost town after a series of recurring earthquakes scared people away in 1963

The romantic medieval castle of Bodiam Castle near Robertsbridge in East Sussex looks like a classic fairytale but the interior is entirely ruined

A sorry-looking amusement park has been unused for decades after the town of Pripyat, built for Chernobyl workers and their families, was evacuated after the 1986 explosion

Broken dodgems lie rusting at the Pripyat Chernobyl Amusement Park

After the Chernobyl disaster in the 1980s, the town of Pripyat in the Ukraine has been uninhabited after contamination fears

Unlikely as it looks, this was one part of the 1984 Winter Olympics. The picture shows a destroyed bobsleigh track on Trebevic mountain, which was damaged during the 1992-95 siege of Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina

The temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia have become a major tourist destination thanks to the fascinating way ancient trees growing among the ruins have so unusually distorted them

The tree roots have almost entirely smothered the ruins of Ta Phrom, the famous Khmer Temple at Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat is the largest religious monument in the world but it threatens to become almost overrun by the nature around it

A lone aircraft that crashed near an ice runway in Patriot Hills has yet to be recovered from its resting place in Antarctica

One of the swing rides at the Nara Dreamland theme park in Japan, which closed down in August 2006

Due to lack of visitors Nara Dreamland eventually closed down, but it had operated since 1961

The once jolly mock-up American town in Nara Dreamland now looks cold and uninviting

A similar scenario befell the Wonderland amusement park on the outskirts of Beijing, though Wonderland never had the chance to even open

The derelict attraction Wonderland in Beijing, China has mold and mildew creeping in after only a few years of neglect since 2008

Boarded entrance gates now guard Wonderland in Beijing, which had once been promoted by developers as 'the largest amusement park in Asia'

A grim-looking unfinished castle stands uncompleted in a field after funds were withdrawn due to disagreements with the local government and farmers

Farmers dig a water well in a field that should have been landscaped gardens for the enchanted castle

This statue of Christ now has only fish for company at San Fruttuoso, Italy near Portofino

Christ of the Abyss is now covered in barnacles and coral but it was deliberately put there in 1954 as a tribute to a pioneer of scuba diving who died

Desert sand covers the furniture now in the ghost town of Kolmanskop, Namibia

Becoming part of the landscape, the Kolmannskuppe ghost town now blends in closely with its desert surroundings

Once a small but very rich mining village, it has now been empty since 1954 when the nearby diamond supply was slowly exhausted

The Ik-Kil Cenote in Yucatan, Mexico is one of several 'cenotes', which were sacred wells used by Mayans. Young men and women were thrown and left to drown there as a sacrifice to the god of rain, but now they are popular with tourists for swimming